


Spending an Eternity

by nijireiki



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Other, Spirit Library, Spirit World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3195407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nijireiki/pseuds/nijireiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following <span class="u"><a href="http://atla.avatarspirit.net/transcripts.php?num=210">Episode 2x10</a></span> of AtLA, things have not gone as smoothly for our heroes <em>or</em> our antagonists as planned, from any angle, in this world or the next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spending an Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> _reposted from[Tumblr](http://princessnijireiki.tumblr.com/post/93768353654/atla-spending-an-eternity)._

Wan Shi Tong was having a particularly long century.

Or it certainly felt like a century; the last one had slipped by so quickly. But then, wars tended to have that effect. They were always good for observation, of course, his shelves and scrolls always needing constant maintenance and touching up for new points of reference, and they certainly lent one a sense of urgency. The Air Nomads were certainly evidence enough of that, though as a spirit of flight himself, there had been no shortage of information at claw until that point. Still, their loss, and, moreover, the loss of future creations and innovations, rankled.

There would be someone else to fill the void, some new strides made forward. But violence was always a step backwards. And the sort of warfaring humans tended to favor, building empires on top of their enemies' rubble, specifically crumbled the paths and histories painstakingly built over the centuries past.

So it had been interesting to see the young Avatar, particularly one already an Airbending master, and his Water Tribe friends, hanging on to and relearning the scraps of something being pulled from their grasp as much as the Air Nomads had been pulled from the young monk's. Wan Shi Tong could appreciate such things. There was also another human with them, less spiritually astute and, moreover, of less academic value, though his knowing how to find the Spirit Library was... troubling. Particularly given the war's close touch to Wan Shi Tong's home and the site of his stewardship already.

To the victor went the spoils, of course-- the Fire Nation history portions of his library could be replaced, given time. And Spirits, more than humans did, at least, have an abundance of time. But it was no human's right. Not even to destroy their own histories, or to use others' to destroy _them_ , in turn. No, no. Not at all. Not with Wan Shi Tong's treasures, or his aid. He would have to watch them very closely.

And he excelled at watching.

He was hardly surprised, though as engrossed in his rage as any spirit had the capability of, when the Avatar betrayed him. The boy was human, more human than Avatar, and had brought dull human friends with him, holding him back. It was of no import in comparison to the affront dealt him. For the Spirit Library, _Wan Shi Tong's_ Library to be abused, for its wonders to be reduced to point-and-counterpoint in bloodshed? For humans to have gone so far that _children_ could enter his mechanical almanac of space and of time both passed and hence and see only a blunt instrument of war? He belonged beyond the reach of them, _and_ their spiritual ambassador. He would sink himself so deep into the Si Wong Desert's sands that he would leave the physical plane entirely, and if destroyers of knowledge died with its passing, so be it. He would collect what little they had of worth and be done with them and their poison, so they could neither hold back the progression of the worlds nor be wholly lost-- they, too, could contribute to the library. He did not spite them this much to deny that, even while humans denied it of themselves and each other.

But they escaped. It was just as well; Wan Shi Tong was angry, still. Of course he was. Spirits do not tire in the way humans' bodies do, so rage can burn as long as it is justified in itself, and so he grew overly meticulous in his grooming and the library's records maintenance, idly trilling to himself at turns until he finally found the corpse of the human who'd remained.

Wan Shi Tong narrowed his eyes. The one who'd had the map, and secrets. Who'd made such a pretty offering. He should have chosen better company; birds of a feather flocked together, so the saying went. He'd died reaching for knowledge, surrounded by books. He hadn't been running. Wan Shi Tong would remember him, and remember that, small and stunted though the man may have been. In fact, the man hadn't even disrupted the books' sort order around where the body sat, cross-legged, somewhat meditative on the floor-- save for... oh.

A raspy, cackling, clicking noise emerged out of the back of Wan Shi Tong's throat, more through the nostrils of his closed beak than anything. A few scrolls had been shuffled. A different sort order, contextualizing some timelines differently, a smaller tome of an only vaguely related tribe's development and eventual receding assimilation into its land's larger culture inserted between them from its own shelf. Swallowed into something far older than itself, that would outlast it, as the human had been. That was not where the book had been placed before; in fact, it was several shelves away, far enough that the man wouldn't have passed it on his way, would have deliberately found it to tie in with the other information he sought. And peoples long dead. No one he would have been warring with.

How very interesting.

But that was not where that book went, of course, so the Knowledge Seekers were tasked with returning everything to its place. The body had no place. He would mummify here, at least, a sort of anchor to the physical world that Wan Shi Tong did not feel particularly inclined to ingest himself; and the Knowledge Seekers had enough to worry about without leaving the library to dispose of the cadaver. No, he would stay. Still, Wan Shi Tong was a little less angry.

All that said, the ghost was very much a surprise.

Wan Shi Tong discovered someone's interference when another book rearrangement caught his eye; more histories laid amongst each other that did not belong. He let out a quiet screech of indignation, and actually spoke aloud, with the universal voice beyond the limits of his form that certain spirits could project, less an aural construct than one of the mind. His Knowledge Seekers knew better than this. "Who disturbs my library?" he'd tutted. Meticulously gripping a delicate binding between two talons, Wan Shi Tong grumbled to himself while inspecting the small calligraphy note he'd painted in one corner of its leathery covering, telling him where exactly to place it. "You don't belong here."

"Sorry," came the whispering rustle, and Wan Shi Tong turned. The Knowledge Seekers were mute, communicating in animal sounds, or pantomime, or in writing or relayed visuals when not solely delivering finds. And there was the human. He was standing awkwardly; Wan Shi Tong blinked, adjusting his vision to include the physical world as he'd left it, where the Spirit Library still had a spectral, abandoned anchor. He was walking as though pushing heavily or swimming through the sand surrounding them. It was draining away, slowly, as the library shrugged off its ties to the desert, but it was giving an amateur spirit-- like a dead human's-- some difficulty, nonetheless.

He screeched again, this one trailing into an ominous territorial squawk. " _You_. You don't belong here, either. Begone." Wan Shi Tong gestured menacingly with one great wing, blacker than physical shadow had been able to manifest in an unburied library, and far broader than physical constraints would have allowed for without disrupting his shelves, as the altercations with this humans' friends had shown, much to Wan Shi Tong's frustration. The human flinched, but didn't disperse, or flee.

"I... don't think I can." Oh. Right. The body. It was halfway in the Spirit World and halfway in the physical. Until it was more disintegrated, the man's spirit might not be able to find a host for reincarnation, or even leave. And Wan Shi Tong was not in the business of _destroying_ spirits, no matter how humble their origins. The human's spirit continued. "I did say I could spend my life in here, after all," he chuckled, sheepishly. "I mean no offense, of course, but I've been reading, since I'm here anyway, and--"

"Don't," Wan Shi Tong snapped. But then the man's face fell in such a way that Wan Shi Tong reconsidered, contemplating eternity-- eternity from a human perspective, no less-- in a library, and unable to read. It would be torture. This human probably deserved it. But Wan Shi Tong was not malevolent. Uninterested in human squabbles, to be sure, but a phantom that couldn't leave the library's walls, couldn't start any fires or steal any calendars, could only cause so much trouble. "...Or at least don't touch anything."

The man's face brightened, but then his brow furrowed. "But how will I--"

" _Put everything back exactly as you found it, then._ " Wan Shi Tong's feathers ruffled slightly, and there was a growl rattling in the back of his throat. If he didn't know any better, he'd say he was getting a headache. "Don't move things around. You'll misplace something. This library is far beyond your capability for understanding, and its organizational system--"

"Oh, I know!" The ghost had the audacity to smile, even as he hopped on one leg foolishly, shaking granules of sand from the kerchief around his neck, trying not to slide down a miniature dune that had begun collapsing under the impact of his spiritual weight. (Wan Shi Tong turned his face at the sight, only marginally, glad that the sand was removing itself if only because it meant he wouldn't have to clean it, happy, upon inspection, that the man was not a ghoulish corpse shuffling around contaminating his books, and happier still to be able to exist completely divorced from the library's physical side.) "See, I'm an anthropologist by trade-- or I was, anyway-- and I was compiling these so I could make a reference--"

" _Anthropologist_ ," Wan Shi Tong grumbled.

"... _Cultural_ anthropologist, yes." His Earth Kingdom accent tightened where before it had been broadening in his enthusiasm. The traveler removed his hat, revealing a slightly receding hairline, squinting and blinking up at the massive owl. He'd been nearly at Wan Shi Tong's eye level before, the sand nearly to the ceiling in some places, but he was brought down to the spirit's chest height, still taller than he'd stood in life. "Physical anthropology-- that's propaganda stuff. It's what the Imperial War built up to justify taking away everything else. So I do sort of-- restoration work, as a preservation thing. Hey, kind of like--" The man stopped stock still, eyes wide and grimacing when he saw how quickly Wan Shi Tong turned back to glower at him, the words dying in his mouth.

"I mean, uh, I was just going to make you a cross-cultural reference list--" He produced a scroll from within his sleeve, the ghost still having retained the bag he'd been wearing in life, along with all the tools in it, and all his other clothes. It was a good thing he'd been dressed for travel, anyway. "I can read the _Old_ Script just fine, so I was going to put everything back. It just takes me a while to climb up the shelves in the first place. Or dig my way down to them."

As if to provide an example, more sand receded, and the man caught himself on one shelf to resist the suction of the grainy earth tumbling him underneath itself and burying him in afterlife as it had when it killed him. He huffed, then dropped himself down the two hands'-breadths in height. "I've had to unbury myself six times now. That's so annoying!"

"Enough." Wan Shi Tong flattened out his wings to his side as best as he could, and snaked his neck out to loom directly in the ghost's face. The man flinched again, and appeared to sweat. "Do what you will. Damage nothing. Deliver your scroll to me when it's completed. Am I clear?" It was an intimidation tactic, to be sure, and normally Wan Shi Tong would consider it a low move in his repertoire; but new information was always tempting. Besides, it was only temporary. And perhaps threats were necessary to keep humans in line, after all.

But the human didn't react with fear at all. He grew excited, grinning widely, teeth shining like they weren't left in a skull over a dozen meters away in both of the two realities his spirit straddled. "Really?! Thank you so much, Wan Shi Tong. I'm so happy for this chance, I promise I won't--"

" _Hm._ " The owl turned his back, crouching low, tucking the text he'd pulled from the shelf close to his body in his other claw.

"--and my name is Professor Zei, and--"

"I don't care." Out of his periphery, Wan Shi Tong could see the man fall backwards, buffetted by the force of the air pushed by his wings as he took flight to return the book to its proper place. He _didn't_ care. But he did take note. And he did hope this _Professor Zei_ managed to put everything back before his spirit vanished from this place. It would be a pain to have to find everything and move it around if he didn't complete his reference list in time.

The next time Wan Shi Tong saw Zei, the mortal man had been carefully inspecting some books still on the shelves, scribbling with dry pigment furiously on his own parchment without removing the original scroll he was looking at from its resting place. He clicked his beak, slightly irritated. "Professor."

Zei jerked his hand back from the wood guiltily, as if he'd been caught making a mess in someone else's things. "Sorry," he apologized automatically. "Just taking notes."

Wan Shi Tong didn't avert his gaze, and the professor stammered on, flustered, and a little morose. "See, I-- I've read _about_ this text, and I was so excited, because the sand finally came down enough where it wasn't too heavy, and I could scoop it away. But..." He raised his hand, and frowned at it. "I'm not solid all the time anymore. I didn't want to drop it and lose it. So I started developing a sub-list of sources I couldn't check myself... Oh! And a base-ten tally code to keep track of where everything is!" He held up the frayed end of his shawl, where he'd apparently deliberately knotted threads in some sort of code, and his own scroll, flipped over to write on its reverse side, full of "正" hatches, National sigils, and the first characters of author names. "It's crude, but it's sort of like the system we use at home..."

Too chatty. The owl changed the subject. "You say you have become incorporeal?"

"Ehhh... partially. Sometimes." Zei frowned again, more surface irritation than the one that had touched his features lamenting an inability to access more reading material. "Do you know how many times I've had to dig myself out _now?!_ "

Wan Shi Tong ignored the outburst. "I suspected as much. Your body is drying out. When the sands leave the library completely, I will _break it apart_ \--" He snapped his beak rapidly, clicking in his throat without meaning to. "--and _spread the dust_ , far from here. Then your spirit will be at peace, and you will _go_ from this place."

"Oh-- oh, no! At this rate, I'll never finish!" Wan Shi Tong blinked; the human seemed more surprised than upset. But then, Zei sighed, smiled, and chuckled to himself, closing his eyes for a moment. "Well. I suppose that's the way it is. There's never enough time for mortals. I will die in the Spirit Library twice, and that is a better fate than any man could dream of."

And then the professor moved to resume his work without another word.

Wan Shi Tong's neck stretched out, just a little, enough for him to turn his head nearly completely on its side. " _Explain_ ," he demanded. He hadn't meant for his voice to sound so angry, or loud; and certainly hadn't anticipated asking Zei to start talking again when he'd finally ( _finally_ ) stopped. But Wan Shi Tong had seen mortals die before-- he'd seen them both ready and unprepared for their deaths. Acceptance did not tend to include continuing tasks to _deliberately_ leave them unfinished, and certainly not _fruitless_ ones. A list! Of books, that Wan Shi Tong already owned. And a code to sort them that no one else would ever see or ever learn.

The spirit did feel a pang within himself at the last thought. No one would ever learn from the Spirit Library again. At least, no mortals would. Not for a very long time. Wan Shi Tong liked the idea of mortals, gave them a chance a few times a millenium, and, very rarely, an enterprising soul that could walk the spirit world found its way to his doors. That was always interesting. But they were so small and petty and obsessed with their own decay, or hastening the decay of others. So at the end of things, they tended to stop, giving in to their own rotting, bleeding, flesh, and only then begin closing the doors of their lives. It was the way they were made, Wan Shi Tong mused, but he could not tolerate their adulteration of the way the world's truths aligned in order to tear the universe apart. He was not made so fiercely just to stand back and allow that to happen.

But Professor Zei's actions made no sense. Even for a ghost. He was working as smoothly as if running on the gears of the planetarium, but with no one to wind him and keep him moving, and no _reason_ to keep going, if he couldn't read, and would soon be free.

Zei seemed startled at the angle of Wan Shi Tong's _head_ , but didn't so much as wince, looking up in the owl's piebald face. "...Explain what...?"

"Why do you keep cataloging? You _are_ dead, in case you'd forgotten. It will do you no good wherever it is human spirits go."

"Oh, I know. This is for _you_."

Wan Shi Tong glared down. "Stupid; I won't be able to get that scroll from you. It will disappear when you fade."

"What?!" He looked terribly dismayed, and dropped down in the sand quite a bit. Wan Shi Tong had a moment of concern, and moved forward to snap Zei up by the collar with his beak, afraid the man would fall irretrievably through the floor. The owl wasn't sure if he was more concerned about the professor's soul being lost into the spirit world or into the bedrock, where he'd _never_ get rid of him, but decided not to worry about it-- Zei had merely sunk to his knees. "What... what... what a tragedy! That means..." He looked up, tears in his eyes, but expression hardening from despair into something like... determination? "That just means I'll have to memorize it, and recite it to you before I go!"

"... _I think not._ "

"We can start right now--"

Wan Shi Tong kicked up two generous clawfuls of sand into the man's path, and then deliberately bumped into another nearby mound to collapse into a dune directly in front of Zei.

"Ahh, no! Wait for me--!"

And Wan Shi Tong left Professor Zei stumbling through the sand, and barrelled further away on foot and then on wing to rooms the human ghost hadn't been able to dig his way to yet, completely shamelessly, feeling like he'd dodged some sort of labor sentence.

It was entirely possible days had passed before Wan Shi Tong saw Zei again. Time passed differently in the spirit world, and on top of that, spirits felt it differently than mortal beings did. But Zei was looking worse for the wear, though chipper. At first glance, it appeared the state of the corpse was reflected in the ghost's face: drawn, thin, pointed features, a dusting of stubble. The owl knew it was what happened when flesh dried, revealing longer nails, harder teeth, hair that had not yet grown past the skin over their bones, as the corpses shrank into themselves. It wouldn't be long now.

What was strange was that Professor Zei saw Wan Shi Tong and said nothing, waving energetically and smiling, but not even calling out to him in greeting before returning to his work. Zei had run out of parchment and begun writing on the material comprising his own shirt, wrapping his arms and hands down to the knuckle. He occassionally scratched at them as if something underneath was bothering him, but still remained silent.

For quite a while, Wan Shi Tong was satisfied with this. But then, curiosity, as it always did, got the best of him. It came with the need to seek, sort, and store knowledge-- there were questions in the world, and there was information that would answer it. Wan Shi Tong had never thought of it as a flaw before, but his library had also never been haunted by a chatty poltergeist in the past. If he could have, Wan Shi Tong would have rolled his eyes. Instead, he sighed, probably with an unnecessary amount of rattle in the sound of it, and approached Professor Zei to stand over him. "You never answered me before."

Zei looked up at him from where he was crouched on the bare floor, hands still quietly scribbling, this time on the fabric binding his legs. His eyebrows were expressive, inquisitive. The sand around him was just above human knee height at its highest. Truly, not much time left. Wan Shi Tong blinked, irritably. This sort of urgency was uncalled for with just one human. "You said you were writing something for me, but I already explained that won't work. Yet you keep writing. Why?"

Professor Zei shook his head, and Wan Shi Tong felt himself stretch out taller in anger, before Zei started waving his hands frantically, arms outstretched in front of him. " _What._ "

Using the back of the stump of his scribe-stick, Zei pointed very deliberately at his throat.

"...You've lost the ability to speak."

Zei nodded, an exaggerated movement involving his shoulders, and the man's hands braced against his own knees. Wan Shi Tong wasn't sure if that was just how Zei was, that since he'd always had so much to say, he'd become expressive in silence, or if it was for the owl's benefit. Wan Shi Tong couldn't keep the angry derision from his voice, more frustrated at his own incomprehension than at Zei's futility. Mortals valued odd things sometimes; but Wan Shi Tong had never been caught in the middle of that, certainly not in individual mortals' deaths.

"Then you're definitely stupid. You'll never be able to recite your scroll to me now."

The man raised one finger, asking Wan Shi Tong to wait, and then folded down his work apron, leaving a clear stretch of leather to scratch lettering out on. It was slow, and laborious-- Wan Shi Tong moved his massive face down to the human's height and peered at him, scrutinizing the human. He didn't seem tired, and his eyes were still shining in the light of the library's lamps, but Zei's skull seemed more angular, and his hands moved stiffly. _Library_ , it said when he was finished. _Even in death, this work is my life._

" _Why?_ " Wan Shi Tong moved closer, and Zei had to lean backwards, sending sand cascading over his shoulders, and causing him to grimace and spit it out of his mouth theatrically as he scrabbled to avoid being buried yet again. "You are dead and you will die again. You spirit will leave this place, and you will never return. Why spend your last time unable to read, unable to speak, still scribbling something I will be unable to read, unable to hear?"

Zei picked up his writing utensil again-- it had snapped when he'd backed away from the larger spirit, so he had to very deliberately write, in an oversized, childlike script: _I am happy here. I love knowledge. I depart both worlds in love._

Wan Shi Tong had turned his face downwards towards the floor, pointed at the man's lap to read what he had written, and slowly tipped his gaze back upwards. For the first time since the sands had begun entering the building, back with the Avatar, back with his friends, Professor Zei's face seemed afraid. But it was as accepting then as it was now, and as sure of himself. "...Interesting," Wan Shi Tong mused.

Zei looked as if he wanted to laugh nervously. But when he opened his mouth, a strange bark coughed out.

Sounding not unlike a fox.

Wan Shi Tong groaned, reeling backwards so quickly his neck bent into a loop not unlike a snake's. " _No._ Oh, no. _Absolutely_ not."

In the end, Wan Shi Tong had retreated back to his own studies, pretending not to see Zei's waving or wild gesticulations, clearly asking what all that meant, or apologizing, or whatever it was the ghost wanted. He decided avoiding eye contact would be best, for now; he would be seeing more of Zei than he wanted to soon, anyway.

The other Knowledge Seekers began to cluster around him, rubbing against him as the man's legs narrowed and shortened, when more fur grew in on hands that had become paws, and ears peeked through the holes in his straw hat. One day, Wan Shi Tong was walking through the shelves, and he saw all of Zei's clothes folded neatly, still ink- and charcoal-smeared; the sand was a mere inch or so on the floors, barely visible at Wan Shi Tong's height even with sight extending to the physical and the spirit world at once. Within the next week, the floors were all glossy tile again, and things had been quiet enough that Wan Shi Tong had grown optimistic that Zei's spirit had gone-- until he heard a startled yip echo throughout the massive hall. Zei's tail had grown in. Wan Shi Tong sighed, far longer and definitely far louder than was necessary this time, and closed a book with a harder clap than he intended. "I'm going on a flight," he'd said to no one in particular, leaving the foxes to guard the Spirit Library while he looped sharp arcs around its external roofs and parapets.

When he returned, the clothes were gone, but Professor Zei's body had been moved, little more than a skeleton sitting with its back pressed against a bookshelf rather than seated in the path of the shelves' aisle. He didn't say anything about it, merely squinted menacingly, knowing what would happen next.

It happened quicker than he'd anticipated, Wan Shi Tong would give Zei that much credit. He'd called another Knowledge Seeker to his side, giving them a task to retrieve some obscure text or other from the Fire Nation, replacing old information, and two had arrived. Wan Shi Tong had stared down at the fox-- brown, with a dark crest down the back of its neck, and dark patches looking something like calligraphy speckling its forelimbs. Its gaze shone blueblack, but more emotionally pleading than the other Knowledge Seekers' were, and it _whined_. "...The others are _silent_ , you know."

The fox that had once been Professor Zei's ghost's eyes widened, and it appeared to snap to attention, mouth clamped shut, and feet pressed hard together. Wan Shi Tong kept staring, hoping to scare the new spirit off.

It didn't work.

He sighed, noting he had begun doing that a _lot_ , lately. "Very well, then. Go together. See what you can find."

Wan Shi Tong turned, but could tell the new Knowledge Seeker had jumped up and flipped in midair, gamboling and making small, quiet, _squeaking_ noises in its jubilation before retreating to join its fellow fox librarians. "I knew I shouldn't have accepted that boy's _butterfly knot_ ," he grumbled. This time, it definitely _was_ a headache.


End file.
